Enthuse Creative works with many business clients to help them develop visual brand identities. Everyone knows a strong brand identity, including a logo is vital to a business, so it can be very tempting to dive right into the design portion of the creative process. Even more important than brand identity to a brand’s lasting success is a sound brand strategy. Here are three reasons building a strong brand needs to start with a strong brand strategy.
“Look Out”
Starting your brand-building process with strategy requires you to think about the market in which your business will exist–and thrive! Your brand exists to speak to the needs and desires of real people, and serve as a viable and valuable solution to their problems.
As a business owner, you must remember, your brand serves people, not you. Much has been made of knowing your “WHY”, and rightly so. Almost as important as your WHY is your WHO! The better you understand your audience, the more effective you will be in marketing to them products and services that provide the right solutions at the right time.
I often encounter small business owners who think primarily in terms of what appeals to them. They prioritize aesthetics over audience. For example, their website copy or marketing content is written or designed in a way that appeals to them but fails to speak to their target audience. Well-executed design that lacks well-executed strategy will still miss the mark– catching attention, but not converting customers.
“Look Around”
Secondly, building your brand with a strategic approach forces you to look objectively at your own business and your competitors. This approach acknowledges that consumers have a wealth of buying choices and also recognizes that your brand does not exist in a vacuum. In the same way that your brand does not exist for itself, neither does your brand exist by itself. It is easy for a business owner to have misjudge their brand’s perceived value or the quality or popularity of their products or services.
A strategic approach eliminates reliance on “gut feelings” for business decision-making by requiring you to carefully assess your own current market positioning with an eye toward where you want to be positioned. The question then moves to how you can highlight the qualities and traits that set your brand apart. You must differentiate yourself.
Assessing your own brand’s strengths and weaknesses (as well as your competitors) will provide insight into opportunities and threats that exist that you can leverage or learn from. For example, you can discover that your brand is uniquely positioned to capture the market for a product or service that the market is demanding but no one is currently delivering. It may also show you where you can better appropriate resources or attention in your brand awareness and marketing efforts.
“Look Inside”
Finally, a strategic approach to building your brand forces you to identify and elevate your business’ unique value. Once you have examined the market and its needs, the competition and their offerings, you are ready to further examine your own business brand and develop a distinct and value-based positioning framework. You will use this to build out internal and external marketing content assets. This will be your take-to-market approach, and it will be strong because it is based on a strong strategy, not just a hunch.
After you have identified your market and acknowledged the other players, and honed in on your spot, now is the time to become clear about what makes you different. We talked about the WHY and the WHO; this stage is all about the HOW. How do you provide maximum value to your customers/clients by doing what no one else can?
Do you need help developing a brand strategy for your new business? Are you an existing business with an unclear or underwhelming brand strategy. Enthuse Creative is brand advisory and design firm providing creatives services to businesses like yours. Contact Enthuse Creative today for a no-cost, no-obligation consultation.
